I've somehow managed about a year and a half without drinking. A couple things helped me stop but the biggest one was the people in my life supporting me and the deep connections I had. I'm poly and married (for now anyway) so a lot of my emotional stability is through having several people very close to me.
This fucking year though. This year I lost my anchor partner who I was expecting to move in with, two other long term partners, a third long-term partner hasn't been talking to me much lately, my spouse of over a decade is wanting a divorce (which has been expected for a while still rough though). Losing my anchor partner has absolutely fucked me up. I was falling more in love with them every day and we were talking often about our future togerher. They broke up with me very out of the blue via text. Add to all this my job is talking laying off a huge amount of employees. I'm fighting with insurance and might end up owing something like $50k. This whole year has been like this just piling on more stressors faster than they can be resolved. The previous year was so happy and everything was working out, I felt connected and like my future was going places. I don't understand how things shifted so dramatically in so many ways.
So the encouragement I guess I'm calling into the void for is guys, I want to drink every day. I'm so tired. Most the people who helped me stop drinking are gone or are on their way out. I thought my relationships would improve after, a lot of people said they were worried about me and I put in the time and effort to be better. I'm trying to socialize and find more people again but alcohol is basically the centerpiece of social gatherings so I can't go to most of them for long. I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
I know it probably doesn't mean a whole lot since I'm just a stranger on the internet, but I'm proud of you for making it through all of this without a drink. I'm proud that you reached out for help and encouragement. I'm proud that you are trying.
Whenever things fall apart, I tell myself that I have to endure the rough times in order to fully appreciate the good. It's kind of cheesy, but it always makes me feel a little bit better.
Maybe try filling your spare time with learning something new, if you have the energy to do it. It could be something really easy like a new hobby (and maybe you could meet someone through that instead of at a social gathering with alcohol?), or it could be learning to code or something. There's lots of free resources out there.
I've been trying to learn a new language and I find it keeps me distracted from thinking about things.
You got this for today!
This does mean a lot thank you. It's been hard having the energy to branch out into hobbies lately but I'll try. I've got some minis that need painting still I could fall back to something familiar like that. This also motivated me to reach out to someone I haven't talked to much in a while about helping them make their game (I actually do already know how to program and love it. I'm kinda stuck in QA right now though haven't done much code lately, but the person I reached out to is missing a consistent programmer for their game). I really appreciate this
I hope you can help your friend with some programming! That sounds pretty exciting. If you ever want to share some progress pics of your minis, I'd love to see them.